Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung and Sprint announce the immediate availability of the Samsung Seek messaging phone with a green twist. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20004568-85.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Dialed In/a/p

The iHome iPhone app converts the otherwise basic iA5 into a feature-loaded alarm clock.

We’re pretty big fans of the HyperMac external batteries here at Engadget, as they’ve saved us on numerous occasions from becoming mindlessly bored on coast-to-coast flights by keeping our laptops humming for a few more hours. Unfortunately, the integrated USB port — while handy — isn’t up for handling Apple’s new iPad, which requires a 10 watt USB adapter to even charge. We tested our lab iPad on our existing 222Wh HyperMac, and sure enough, the screen you’re peering at above is what we saw (read: “Not Charging”) — though it does seem to power the device as to not drain what’s left of the battery while connected. In order to remedy said quandary, the folks at Sanho have announced a new line of HyperMac batteries that support iPad charging, but unfortunately for you existing users, every available upgrade path involves shelling out more cash for a new pack. The revamped devices will be available in four different capacities: 60Wh ($169), 100Wh ($269), 150Wh ($369) and 222Wh ($469), able to extend the iPad 25Wh rated internal battery by 2 to 9 times, giving a total run-time of between 34 to 99 hours. Sanho claims these will be rechargeable up to 1,000 times and will include a one-year warranty, so if you’re interested, you can place your pre-order now and await a shipment notification in around a fortnight.

Continue reading HyperMac external battery packs refreshed with iPad charging support

HyperMac external battery packs refreshed with iPad charging support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 May 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM thought it’d save everyone some time (us included) by bundling both the 14- and 20-key variants of its upcoming Pearl 3G in a single FCC filing, which is awfully nice of them. The phones you’re looking at here are both operating on WCDMA Bands II and V, which means they’ll work swimmingly on Bell, Telus, Rogers, and AT&T (though Telus and Rogers have both announced the 20-key version alone, and neither Bell nor AT&T have said a peep on the matter). At any rate — considering that RIM has promised a May release window — we can’t imagine it’ll be long before we get the rest of the details (read: your move, AT&T).

BlackBerry Pearl 3G scoops FCC approvals in two flavors originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 May 2010 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although Apple’s next iPhone operating system is at least a month away from release, Wired.com got a hands-on peek at the latest beta and found some interesting goodies that have not been officially announced.

Most notably, the iPhone OS 4 beta 3 software includes a brand new iPod widget and a file-sharing feature that was previously exclusive to the iPad. (These features were previously reported by Boy Genius Report.)

Other new features we tested were those on display during Apple’s recent iPhone event: multitasking, folders, universal e-mail, wallpaper and camera zoom. Taken together, they paint a picture of an operating system that is well on its way to a major upgrade, one that will greatly increase the usability of Apple’s growing family of iPhone OS-based devices.

The iPhone OS is Apple’s mobile platform, which powers the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. After releasing the iPad, iPhone OS 4 will be Apple’s next move to do battle in an increasingly competitive mobile landscape. Currently, Apple’s biggest rival is Google’s Android OS, and upcoming contenders include Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and HP, which recently acquired Palm.

Apple has said the iPhone OS 4 upgrade will be available this summer for iPhones (3G and 3GS models) and the third-generation iPod Touch, and in the fall for the iPad. (The older iPod Touch devices and the first-generation iPhone will not support the OS.)

Apple has released previous iPhone OS upgrades during its Worldwide Developers Conference in years past. Apple’s upcoming WWDC kicks off June 7, so expect the official upgrade to become available for download around then.

Meanwhile, take a look at what we found in the beta to get an idea of what to expect.

Multitasking

This couldn’t have come at a better time. Pressing the Home button twice brings up a bar at the bottom of the screen that shows apps that are running in the background. Tap an icon and the main screen very quickly rotates over to the corresponding app. This is far more efficient than the current process, which requires you to press the Home button to leave an app and then launch another app.

Multitasking will be especially important for the iPad for those who plan to use it for work, since it will allow quicker switching between different apps. It will also enable apps to run in the background, so you can (for instance) listen to music from the Pandora app while you chat with your friends in Meebo.

If there’s an app showing up in the multitasking bar that you’re not using often, you can hold your finger down on it until the icon jiggles. Tap the — (minus sign) button in the corner and the app closes.

One caveat: Apple said multitasking will only work on the current iPhone 3GS; it does not work on the iPhone 3G.

iPod widget

In the same bar you use for multitasking, you can swipe all the way to the left to access a control panel for the iPod. Using that panel you can play, skip or go backward a track. The widget also contains a shortcut to your iPod app in case you want to view your whole library. It works great, and I’m a big fan of this addition. Perhaps Apple will at some point introduce a widget API for third-party apps to have their own controllers similar to the iPod’s. That would be very interesting, wouldn’t it?

To the left of the iPod widget is a screen-orientation lock in case you don’t want your iPhone flipping back and forth between landscape and portrait mode. That serves the same function as the physical orientation-locking switch on the iPad.

Folders

If you’re an appoholic and want to clear some clutter from your screen, you can now create folders to hold your apps. Holding your finger on an app makes it jiggle, and you can then drag it on top of a similar app to create a folder. For example, if you drag a game on top of another game, it creates a game folder, and you can keep adding more games to it. It works smoothly, though at times you’ll probably accidentally create folders when all you wanted to do was rearrange your apps. It takes just a few minutes to get used to, however.

Wallpaper

iPhone OS 4 now enables you to display a wallpaper behind your apps on your springboard just like you can with the iPad (or with jailbroken iPhones).

Some will enjoy this feature, but I found it fugly. The screen just looks too noisy with apps and a wallpaper in the background. Surprisingly there’s no option to disable the springboard wallpaper, but I’m guessing that was just an option that was left out of the beta. In its absence, you can simply select an all-black image as the wallpaper.

Universal e-mail

One of the most impressive and useful features in iPhone OS 4 is the ability to view e-mail from two e-mail addresses in a single inbox. An “All Inboxes” tab at the top of your Mail screen is all you have to tap. If you have multiple e-mail accounts to monitor (say, work and personal) that should cut down on the amount of time you spend reading messages. Bravo!

Camera zoom

In your camera app, if you tap and hold your finger on a specific area, you can zoom in using a sliding bar. It’s digital zoom, so of course it degrades the quality the more you zoom; a test image looked awfully blurry. There will be some situations, however, where this should come in handy.

File sharing

Finally, there’s a feature that doesn’t work at all yet but appears promising: iTunes file sharing. When your iPhone is plugged in and you click the Apps tab, you can see a File Sharing option that says it can transfer documents between your iPhone and your computer. Currently the iPad has a similar feature for syncing files to some apps, so hopefully we’ll get a working version when the official iPhone OS 4 is released.

And that about covers it for now. There were a couple of bugs here and there, as to be expected in a beta, but so far, the OS is running very smoothly. Also, iPhone OS 4 feels significantly faster than iPhone OS 3 — much zippier Safari web browsing and overall responsiveness.

Overall, this is a big upgrade to look forward to.

See Also:

• Apple Rolls Out iPhone 3.0 Operating System Upgrade
• Apple Unveils Next-Gen, Multitasking iPhone OS
• First Look: Apple Stays Ahead of the Curve With iPhone 3.0 OS
• New iPhone OS 4 Beta Gets Screen-Lock, Task-Manager
• Skype on iPhone OS 4: Incoming Calls, But Mysteriously 3G Lags
• New iPhone Expected at Apple Developer Conference